Former Graeme College pupil Kyle Badenhorst has been selected to represent South Africa in the Dance Star World Championships in Croatia in May. Badenhorst was one of 1600 dancers who auditioned for the Global Dance Group (Dance Star), whose judges visited South Africa to scout for the dance talent, recently.
The auditions took place in Cape Town and Johannesburg, across various genres, such as tap, ballet, jazz, contemporary/modern, urban styles (hip-hop), traditional dance.
Badenhorst was selected in Urban Style Solo and Contemporary/Modern Solo, the two categories he entered and will join the SA team for the Croatia trip.
Badenhorst was born in Cape Town, but went to school at Graeme College where he was awarded a rugby bursary to Kingswood College. He was then invited to join the Sharks Rugby academy in Durban, but a knee injury scuppered his well-laid plans.
But from when he could first toddle around Badenhorst had another great love. Both his parents and sister are dancers and choreographers in several genres and continue to teach their many students. The end of year show of Sha-Loui Dance School is testament to their many talents and high standard of performance. Latterly Badenhorst has joined mother Sharon and sister Sasha as a teacher and choreographer at the Sha-Loui Dance School with over 100 students.
He achieved a measure of success in the South African Inter-Varsity Championships in Ballroom and Latin American genre with Paige de Bruin of Port Alfred, when the pair finished fifth, representing Nelson Mandela University.
Kyle’s hopes for Croatia are to learn from his experience and those of other dancers and judges- after all “dance is the unspoken language of the artist.”
Placing in the top 10 would be amazing, Badenhorst said, and later, he hopes to attend the London Dance Studio Urban Strides, which is the only accredited street-dance teacher training school in the world.
Badenhorst needs help in order to off-set some of the expenses. Well-wishers and supporters (even with R1 contributions) are welcome to visit Backabuddy- https//www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/get-kyle- to-dance- star- croatia OR FOLLOW the facebook page- getkyletocroatia and follow the prompts.
